AE CS6 not recognising graphics card with CUDA

[NorfolkVideo]

Having invested in Production Premium CS6 this year, I wanted to make the best of it, and upgraded both motherboard and graphics card to take advantage of the promised CUDA processing. Having done so, AE (Edit > Preferences > Preview) has consistently refused to recognise the card, and I am looking for advice on what I can try next.

For information, my PC system involves Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, an Asus P8Z68-V/PRO/GEN3 MoBo, 16GB RAM, and the new graphics card, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2GB DDR5). I have installed the latest Nvidia driver, 310.70, and the CUDA Toolkit v 5.0. It is possible to run the samples supplied with the CUDA Toolkit, and an application called CUDA-Z functions, both of which seem to suggest to a non-programmer like myself that the 1,344 CUDA processors on the card are working just fine.

It was suggested on another forum that I edit the file raytracer_supported_cards.txt which is in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS6\Support Files to include the GTX 660. Other people have found this to work - i.e. that after doing so and resaving the file, AE recognises their card and its CUDA capability. I haven't.

I've run out of ideas. Does anyone please have either an explanation for the AE response, or a fix?

Peter

Norfolk, UK

[CSNewbie19]

It works!!!!!

I downloaded Java SE 7 JDK from here and installed it.

I restarted the computer and launched After Effects and got very excited because I did not get the dreaded compile error ..... and then very disappointed because GPU 3D processing was still not working .....

..... until I remembered that I deleted "GeForce GTX 660 Ti" from the supported cards text file last night to get rid of that annoying start up message, continuously reminding me that I had bought the "wrong" video card.

So I ran Notepad as an administrator, edited the file. Saved it, restarted and ....

Bingo! It works!!!!! I am one very happy 660 Ti owner.

Thank you very much, John.

Try it Peter, I hope it works for you and any others out there with CUDA cards that aren't being recognized.

Cheers!

[reedpi]

I am so glad I helped someone else out!

It seems crazy and makes no sense but am glad it works.

I spent hours HOURS trying to figure it out.

Pass it on!

John

John Reed

john@reedpi.com

www.reedpi.com

435-881-1010

Have Panasonic HD Cameras, and RED EPIC, Cam Mate Jib and Steadicam - HAVE CAMERA WILL TRAVEL!!!

[reedpi]

Hey Todd,

I tried sending this to you but your mailbox is full.

Ive looked at several of your articles and hope you can help me.

I have had the Quadro 4000 for several months, using CS5.5 on a Mac Pro, with 10.7.5 and has worked with Mercury Playback.

I did an update - always keep up to date - and now it doesnt work.

I have tried to go back to 5.0.17, 5.0.36, 5.0.24, 4.2.10, etc with 295.000 5f03, 02

Nothting works. Ive talked to Nvida, Mac and Adobe, no one seems to be able to help.

From your comments with others I see you have a connnection with Nvidea - can you please list a link to help me with this.

Im running 10.7.5 OS on a mac pro, CS 5.5

Thank you for your help.

John

[Daniel S. O'Connell]

I've had the same problem-- Premiere Pro and After Effects not recognizing my new GPU.

The problem is in the file PP looks for is cuda_supported_cards.txt

And AE looks in raytracer_supported_cards.txt

If your GPU isn't listed, then the programs assume you don't have the right CUDA enabled card. The problem is that Adobe has a hard time keeping current with the CUDA cards as they are produced. For example, I had a geForce GTX 670 card, which was not listed in those files, but the geForce 570 card was. Clearly, the 670 was just an improvement over the 570, but Adobe hadn't had a chance to update those txt files.

It has nothing to do with Java or anything else. It's just the txt file that contains the names of the GPUs.

Also, for AE, it isn't just 3D modeling or ray trace that gets affected. It's also speeds up hardware accelerated panels and the Cartoon Effect. Plus, I've got 4 GB on the Nvidia card and the CUDA cores going to waste if I don't maximize my use of the GPU I paid extra money for.

In my case, I'm using a souped up laptop with a geForce gtx 675mx chip. And I saw a noticeable increase in render speed once I modified the two txt files.

Yes, it would be nice if Adobe were faster in updating the cards in their txt files, but in the meantime, if you have a card that is clearly an update of an older card (like going from the 570 to the 670), then I think it is a pretty safe bet.

The only other thing to remember is that if you update PP or AE, via the Creative Cloud, or otherwise, your carefully prepared txt files are likely going to get overwritten, and you'll have to re-edit them to include your card.

Hope that helps.

[Todd_Kopriva]

> Also, for AE, it isn't just 3D modeling or ray trace that gets affected. It's also speeds up hardware accelerated panels and the Cartoon Effect.

That is misleading.

The Cartoon effect and the hardwre acceleration of viewers have nothing to do with CUDA and have nothing to do with the text file that you refer to. Those features use OpenGL and work on any video card that meets certain minimum requirements without any tampering with any text files.

Details are here:

http://adobe.ly/AE_CUDA_OpenGL_GPU

[Daniel S. O'Connell]

If it's misleading, then it's AE's fault

If you go to  File menu: Edit / Preferences / Previews. Click GPU Information drop down menu,

Mine says: "Fast Draft Available. Texture Memory: 3948 MB. This setting also affects hardware-accelerated panels and the Cartoon effect."

Switching between GPU and CPU for Ray-tracing also turns on and off the CUDA section on Current and Maximum Usable Memory 

I didn't make this up-- I copied it from the AE dialog box. Perhaps the presentation of information isn't clear enough?

I read the article referred to above-- very informative. Thank you.

[Todd_Kopriva · Accepted solution]

Today, we released the After Effects CC (12.1) update, which adds many GPUs to the list of cards that After Effects will use for GPU acceleration of the ray-traced 3D renderer.

See this page for details:

http://adobe.ly/AE_CC_12dot1_details